Illegal Conversions – What’s the Real Story?

What is an illegal conversion?

According to this pamphlet from the NYCDept. of Buildings, an illegal conversion is:

an alteration or modification of an existing building to create an additional housing unit without first obtaining approval from the NYC Dept of Buildings.

So, if someone takes a 2 bedroom apartment and partitions it into two 1 bedroom apartments without permission, that would be an illegal conversion. Simple enough.

Why are illegal conversions a problem?

According a Gothamist story from earlier this month, state senator Martin Golden is calling on the City to form a task force to combat illegal conversions, calling it “one of the most pressing problems facing the south Brooklyn community.”

And it seems south Brooklyn is not alone. Since the start of 2010, the City’s 311 complaint hotline has logged a city-wide total of 92,574 illegal conversion complaints, plotted in the map above.

Clearly many people view illegal conversions as a major problem. But it was not immediately obvious to me why. So I dug around to see if I could find a good explanation.

Below is a rundown of the various reasons I found. Judge for yourself whether any of them make sense to you.

Reason #1: Illegal conversions are a strain on local resources

According to the Dept of Buildings pamphlet mentioned above, illegal conversions are harmful because:

“…they reduce a neighborhood’s quality of life by straining essential services, causing over-crowding and reducing the already-limited amount of industrial and manufacturing space necessary to support local businesses.”

“…a strain on sanitation, water and sewer usage.” It also states, “developers are buying these one and two-family homes and paying inflated prices for them so that they can subdivide them. That affects the real estate market and people’s property taxes.”

I’m not sure what it means for sewer usage to be strained. but at least the part about the inflated property values is plausible. Housing affordability in New York City is strained enough as it is, and higher property values do generally lead to higher property taxes.

“…dangerous situations for firefighters” because of “inaccurate plans”

I have the highest respect for New York City’s firefighters, who risk their lives to protect others. So this is not an issue I wish to minimize. But are illegal conversions really putting fire fighters in such serious danger?

According to FDNY data, only one firefighter has died in the line of duty in the last three years, and it had nothing to do with an illegal conversion. In fact, I have not managed to identify any case where an illegal conversion in NYC was responsible for a firefighter’s death.

Based on FDNY data for the two year period 2012 to 2013, there were 49 fires that resulted in fatalities. Of these 49 buildings, 19 of them had previously received a complaint for having been illegally converted.

In other words, about 40% of fatal building fires occurred in buildings likely to have been illegally converted.

Based on these numbers, it is hard to dispute that residents of illegal conversions are at greater risk of being harmed in a building fire.

However, it is not the inhabitants of illegal conversions who are complaining, it is their neighbors. Is their opposition really out of concern for the safety of others?

More importantly, does a policy of eliminating illegal conversions actually benefit the inhabitants?

The Department of Buildings found conditions at 249 Norman Avenue to be “imminently perilous to human life” following an inspection Feb. 10th. The roughly 25 tenants were given a week to collect possessions and now have to find another place to live.

Aaron and Jennie Drogoszeski with their miniature daschunds Pita and Clyde. With their first child soon on the way, the couple have been turned out of the Greenpoint apartment they’ve lived in for more than three years.

What kind of housing policy throws families out on the street to protect them from fire code violations?

Reason #6: Illegal conversions cause school overcrowding

In a Feb 26 townhall meeting, described by the Bensonhurst Bean, City Councilman Carlos Menchaca tells a crowded town hall:

“You are not crazy to be frustrated. You are not crazy that your schools are overcrowded.”

New York’s schools are indeed overcrowded, but is that really the issue here? If so, wouldn’t it be more logical to campaign for the City to build more schools? Hire more teachers?

Is throwing those children and their families out on the street really the best solution?!

Reason #7: We don’t like your kind around here…

From the same townhall meeting,

One attendee drew a rhetorical line from illegal conversions to an increased presence of massage parlors, sweatshops, signs of human trafficking, and trash. Some hoist those problems on the neighborhood’s growing Asian-American population, and at least one person made a comment briefly bringing such tension to the forefront.

“I don’t feel comfortable with an Asian in the room, I have to admit,” shouted one attendee from the crowd.

Are these the people our elected officials are pandering to?

Maybe there really is a good reason for such strong opposition to illegal conversions. But at the surface, it sounds a lot like:

Discriminatory zoning– the utilization of zoning ordinances to exclude certain types of people from a given community

and

Redlining– the practice of, in the United States, denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance, access to health care, or even supermarkets, or denying jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined, areas.

I'm an NYC-based entrepreneur (my newest project: Blueshift) and adjunct instructor at UPenn. I'm fascinated by data visualization and the ways that data is transforming our understanding of the world. I spend a lot of time with my face buried in Excel, and when I find something interesting I write about it here and also as a Guardian Cities and Huffington Post contributor.More about my background

This was a very in depth article. It states excellent facts regarding the ongoing situation of illegal dwellings here in this very ridiculous expensive city. I have lived in an illegal apartment in Brooklyn and the owner broke down walls separating two apartments and combined them into a single unit with several rooms. In other words, he transformed the entire floor into a rooming house. The FDNY came after a complaint was made about lack of a safe exit from one of the rooms. Dept. of Buildings was notified and you know the rest…..not a happy ending for the tenants. Yes, when a Vacate Order has been issued, people are sadly put out on the streets!

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Thank you. I’m sorry to hear of your situation. It’s a sad state of affairs when the City takes away people’s homes and justifies it as “for their own good.”

Vicky Mountogiannakis

I am a building owner in Brooklyn. Yes someone, probably a neighbor called that I illegally added an apartment to an obvious 3 family house. For about 20 years that I own this house I pay 3 family taxes and 3 family insurance. My house is registered to the department of Taxation and a 3. So, I was served 2 violations. One for the illegal conversion and another for using the house as a 3 family when the certificate of occupancy says 2 family plus a recreation room on the ground floor (it’s huge) recreation what ping pong? So, I went to the ECB hearing and I proved that I purchased the home with the small ground floor apartment. They dismissed it. But, I was given a $2,400 fine for using a house different that the CofO! Obviously mine and 5 more houses were built this way. The builder

I called an architect and the buildings department and am trying to fix this the right way. It will probably cost me $40,000. If I am required to do things that are ridiculously priced, I will clear the violation eventually……change the house back to a two family and pay less taxes. Less income for the City! Yes people do things illegally and with ill intentions but in this case it wasn’t. I am being terrorized by the Department of Buildings and who cares….probably no one. I will try my best to fix things the right way but, if forced to I will just clear the violation and lower my taxes forever!

Vicky Mountogiannakis

By the way, again it depends on each individual situation. I’m not referring to the ridiculous subdivisions but, in honest circumstances if the city was reasonable more people would file to correct various situations. Then more income would be generated for the city. It’s all about the money and giving fines and screwing honest as well as the others……so wouldn’t this make sense?

The Metrocosm Newsletter

Keep up to date with the best data-driven content from Metrocosm and around the web (more info)